The Return
by TheRoneBone
Summary: Left out by his family, in favor of the boy-who-lived, Harry Potter leaves home. He ends up in Australia, and gains power, friends, and ends up reforming the country. Now Harry must go back to the UK to reform the country, chosen as tri-wizard champion. Rating T, may go up. James, Lily, BWL bashing, Harry is not the Boy who lived.
1. Prologue

**AN: I've recently taken a liking to Harry/Fleur fanfics after reading His Angel by durararaaa and Harry Potter and the Veela by Z-bond, so I decided that I'd write my own. So, here it is, I guess, The Return**

**Prologue**

It was a cold Saturday evening, and the wind was whistling aimlessly through the bare trees. A large group of men and women, about 20 in all, were standing in a seemingly rehearsed formation around a young man in a large meeting hall of an enormous house situated in a clearing of a large forest. The young man looked to be in his early twenties, and seemed very handsome, with light blond hair, chiseled muscled features, and striking black eyes. The man wore a serious expression on his face, and his eyes conveyed that it was a serious gathering that they were there for. Each of the surrounding men were wearing some sort of uniform. Every uniform was pitch black except for the insignia: some red, some green, some blue, and some yellow. Green stood for foreign affairs, red stood for domestic affairs, yellow stood for scientific research, and no one but the three blue members knew what blue stood for. The men in that circle were the most important men in the Australian magical community.

"Green team, Report," the man in the center said.

"Lord Valamyre," one of the men wearing green said. "We bring news from the American magical community. They have finally figured out how to use Muggle technology in magical environments. However, they are not sharing the news with the common people. They fear that the use of Muggle technology will debase their entire magical government."

"Hmm. They may be right on that respect, but the American magical government is crap. Find out more of what they have done with Muggle technology, Drakat" Lord Valamyre said.

"I will, my lord," Drakat said. "Additionally, the tri-wizard tournament held between the three major European magical schools has bore four champions."

"Four champions," Lord Valamyre mused.

"Yes. Apparently they are in some sort of uproar as one of the slips of paper that came out of the tri-wizard cup held a name of someone who had been presumed dead for several years now. Additionally, one bore the name of an under-aged wizard. Even stranger: they are siblings." Drakat said.

"Interesting. Might I know their names?" Valamyre asked.

"Alan and Harry Potter," Drakat informed. A brief look of surprise passed across Valamyre's face before fading away. A similar response flickered across every member of the blue team.

"Very well. Any additional news?" Valamyre asked.

"No, sir," Drakat said.

"Dismissed. Red team, report," Valamyre asserts.

"My lord," a woman wearing red repeated. "There are no problems to report with the Australian magical community. Things are going well, as always. Profits are up, prices are down, everyone's happy."

"Excellent," Valamyre intoned. "Yellow team, report,"

An old and wise looking man stepped forward, saying "We believe that we have found a cure for forced lycanthropy. It will be long and complicated, of course, but the cure is in sights. Additionally, we have developed new fighting technology that combines wand magic with Muggle firearms. Normally, bullets can easily be shielded against by magic, correct."

"Correct," Valamyre said.

"Yes, well we have found a way to imbue bullets with magic. This will make them magic resistant, and it will take much more magical energy to shield against a bullet." he said.

"Excellent. Continue your research, yellow team. Good work as always. You are all dismissed. I will have some business to take care of, and I do not know how long it will take. Allan will be in charge until I get back." Valamyre said. A gruff member of the blue team nodded back. "Blue team, stay. The rest of you will be meeting with Allan next Saturday. If you need to report something urgent to me, call or text me, as always."

All but three of the men and women apparated off, leaving the circle. The blue team, two men and a woman, stayed back. Immediately, Valamyre changed shape into a black-haired man with striking green eyes without losing all of the muscles on his body. "So, blue team, you all heard the news," Valamyre said.

"Of course, my lord. Apparently the English magical government believes that you have now been roped into a magical contract in which you must participate in three tasks of the judges' choosing or lose your magic. They are all frantically looking for you," a tall and elderly looking man said.

"Don't they know that it's impossible to make a magical contract without the participant's approval, Zephyr?" Valamyre asked.

"They believe that the Goblet of Fire is some sort of old magical artefact that doesn't follow those rules," Zephyr replied.

"Interesting. Well, why not humor them." Valamyre said.

"You cannot mean what I think you mean," the woman said.

"Well, why not, Anna?" he asked.

"You are too valuable, my lord. You saved Australia, and you must rule it." she said.

"Oh, I think Allan is perfectly capable of ruling in my stead. Besides, my people are fine without me. Now that Alexander is gone, the Australian people can live in peace without my interference. But the UK, France, Russia, the Americas, they all need major governmental changes. It's time that Australia came out of its shell, and now we have the perfect scout. As a tri-wizard champion, I will be able to navigate Hogwarts, learning all about the country and how to deal with it. When I ultimately win the tournament, I can 'decide' to stay there, and with my power, I will soon be able to take it over from the inside. If we can capture and change UK, other magical countries will soon follow. Then I can reveal myself as ruler of Australia, and once our standard of living is globalized, we can re-open worldwide trade. We were going to do this anyways, now we'll be doing it quicker." Valamyre said.

"But you could get hurt," Anna desperately cried.

"Oh please," Valamyre said. "Do you really think that I would get hurt from English wizards. Maybe if I took off my amulet and they got a lucky shot, but there's no way that I'm taking this thing off," he said, patting a small spherical object attached directly to his chest. The string used to hold it there was ornamental; the amulet had actually fused into his flesh.

"But-" Anna said, before being cut off.

"I hate to do this, but I must for the good of the world. I must take up an identity that I had given up many years ago. I must go to the British Isles as Harry Potter." Valamyre said.

"But my lord, what about your family?" Allan asked.

"They are not my family. Dealing with those scum is a small price to pay for reforming the wizarding world. Australia is not enough, I will not limit myself to just fixing Australia. The world has serious problems, problems that need to be fixed, and I am the man to fix them." Valamyre said.

The most respected and loved wizard in all of Australia walked out of the meeting room in order to ponder his next course of events.

**This is a different Harry, and this chapter was just the prologue, so it was purposefully short and purposefully did not reveal much about Harry's past. Later chapters will be 4000-10000 words.**


	2. Chapter 1: How it All Began

******College results have started to trickle in. I got into Purdue (no surprise there) and didn't get into Caltech (again no surprise). I'm hoping for Georgia Tech's presidential scholarship, but I don't think it's going to happen. Georgia Tech, UIUC, and SJSU all come out this weekend, so hopefully posting this chapter will give me good luck!**

******Anyways, 21 reviews for barely 1000 words, that's like 1 review every 50 words I write, which is awesome! At that rate, I'll have 1000 reviews 50,000 words in. ********(No, I don't expect the trend to continue, but I'd love if it would). **Now, I'm never going to beg for reviews, and I'm only going to say this once, so don't peg me as one of those authors who makes review quotas. PLEASE REVIEW. This goes for everyone reading it. And any feedback, especially criticsm, is fine with me. Even if you don't have much to say, I still want to know whether you liked it or not, and what I can do to improve. I'm sure that this applies for other authors on this site, but reviews make me work faster, so review, review, review!

******Now, this chapter is going to start off pretty cliche, which is why I decided to start off with a relatively fresh intro (I'm hoping) but I want to distinguish myself by the end of this chapter and continue it through next chapter. Hopefully (because I haven't written the next chapter yet) I'll have the background of the story done by then.**

******Additionally, I have a basic plot outline sketched ready to go, but I pretty much update right after I finish editing a chapter. If you'd like me to go on a more regular schedule of one update every two weeks, updating on a certain day, I can do that. Tell me what you think about that in a review. And I was able to finish this chapter relatively quickly because I had a lot of free time. For the next two weeks******** I have to work on a physics project and a bio project, so there probably won't be an update for another two weeks. Sorry about that.**

**Chapter 1: How it all Began**

As Valamyre was packing his bags for his trip to England, he took a moment to appreciate what he had done with his life so far. He had done more at seventeen than most did in their lifetime. His thoughts traced back to how it all started; how his life began.

Valamyre's first major memory of his past was a few months after his fourth birthday; the beginning of a turning point in his life, and a Halloween. It was a stormy Halloween, or as the wizards called it, Samhain. The children who would normally be out and about, trick-or-treating or exchanging candy with one another, as was the wizarding custom that had transferred to the Muggle world, but in Godric's Hollow, the wizarding parents had all forced their kids to stay at home, where they could peacefully weather out the horrible storm.

The generally quiet nature of Godric's Hollow did not extend to the largest house in the town; New Potter Manor was a humdrum of excitement and activity. Though the neighboring members of Godric's Hollow could not see the Potter household because it was protected by a Fidelius ward, one of the strongest protection wards in the world, the Potters had decided to go to the Ministry's Halloween party, and were getting ready. And that was where Valamyre's memory started.

"Lily, ready to go?" James asked.

"Yeah, hold on," Lily said. "I need to get ready, five more minutes."

"Take all the time you need," James said. "I mean, it's not like the party started at 6, is it. Oh wait, it did."

"Shut up, James," Lily retorted. She exited the dressing room and entered the main hallway of New Potter Manor.

"Okay, Wormy, Harry can pretty much take care of himself, just make sure he goes to bed at nine. For Alan, you'll need to put him to sleep at seven thirty, and give him milk right before bed, or he'll cry. Got it?" James said, giving directions to Peter Pettigrew, Alan's godfather.

"Uh, sure," Pettigrew said with shifty eyes. It was clear that he was nervous about something, but James assumed that it was because he was in charge of the kids for the first time.

"And Pete," James said, right when they were about to leave. Pettigrew turned around nervously, expecting the worst. "Thanks," he said. "You don't know how much it means that me and Lily can have a spare day without looking after the kids, knowing that they're with someone we trust."

"No problem," Pettigrew slowly said, biting his lip. He felt guilty about what he was about to do, especially because James had just guilt-tripped him, but he felt that he had no choice. He had sold his soul to the devil when he decided to join Lord Voldemort, and he didn't have a choice but to help his master. Even if he was friends with James, he had to bury it.

James left, leaving Pettigrew with the kids. Waiting an appropriate half-hour for safety, Pettigrew amused himself by watching Harry (he was still Harry back then) and Alan. Harry was running around downstairs in a cape with a fake wand, as it was Halloween, and Alan was crawling on the floor, sucking his pacifier. After the half-hour was up, Pettigrew exposed his sleeve and pressed two fingers down on his dark mark, calling Lord Voldemort.

Immediately a large black blur flew into the Potter manor, condensing into the form of the Dark Lord. Pettigrew immediately scampered off, his work being done, while Voldemort took stock of the house. He noticed Harry, a small four year old boy staring at him with anger, with a fake wand in his hand and a cape on his back. He laughed a deep throaty chuckle; to think that this boy had more guts than most of the wizarding population combined. He decided not to kill the boy, as he could be a valuable ally someday, so he advanced up the stairs, with Harry following. He opened the door to Alan's room and Harry tugged on his robes to stop him. Turning around and banishing him away, Voldemort entered into Alan's room, eager to destroy the damned prophecy child.

Of course, that was all Harry knew of what happened there. He later learned that Alan had used some form of magic to repel the killing curse and kill Voldemort, but that mattered little to him. What mattered was how Harry had felt. Even at the young age of four, Harry had been reading chapter books, and his favorite kind involved heroes who slayed evil villains. But how could he be a hero if he was just thrown away at the flick of the wand? Harry resolved that that would change; that he would be powerful and never lose again. And he made that resolution at a young age.

After that incident, Alan became famous in the wizarding world. And the Potters slowly but surely took their attention away from him and gave it all to Alan. It started out with them playing with him less frequently, rebuffing his asking to go fly, play chess, or teach him potions. After a while, Harry stopped asking, as the only reply he heard was a flat "I'm busy". And then Harry pulled apart even more from the rest of the family. During meals, Harry was not present, as he asked the house-elves to prepare his meals separately. His time was mainly spent in the large Potter library, where he was free to explore the vast genres of books, from fiction to historical to magical. And by his seventh birthday, he was given a freedom that would make teenagers jealous, though Harry would much rather spend time with his family, or even have them acknowledge his presence. But Harry took advantage of his freedom, especially when he discovered that he could change his body parts as a Metamorphagus.

Masquerading as a tall twenty year old man, Harry was able to visit Diagon Alley, the major shopping center of the wizarding UK, and purchase whatever he wanted with money from his trust vault. He bought two wands: one with a tail hair of a shadow wolf and one with a phoenix feather from an ice phoenix. Harry also purchased many books on various diverse subjects such as Occlumency, Legimency, Animagus transformations, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Charms, and Ancient Runes, which he all kept in his secret hideout in his room. It didn't have to be secret, as his parents never went into his room, but Harry took the precaution just in case. Harry developed the skill of writing in both hands, and was able to transfer that to being ambidextrous, and being able to use two wands at the same time. Harry's head start into the world of magic gave him skills that most sixth years would be envious of. He was a powerful dueler able to easily cast silently with both hands simultaneously and could use transfiguration during duels. He was also a well-versed potioneer, able to make potions without instructions using the actual theories behind it. But most of all, he was an inventor. Harry loved creating things with his own ingenuity, and had some ground-breaking accomplishments. At eight years old, he was able to make small protection amulets that would deflect inanimate objects that were thrown at him. At nine, Harry developed his own set of clothes that would change shape and size based on what he wanted. It was mainly of use toward his metamorphagus powers, as it allowed him to change body shape without having to change his clothes. He developed seven sets, one for every day of the week. And at ten, Harry had developed tracers: objects that sent out magical frequencies in order to be spotted on a map. And Harry's inventions helped him in dueling, and in potions.

But the one thing that Harry wanted at the time, the one thing that all children want, was recognition from his parents. He wished he could show his parents what he could do and prove to them that he was competent enough to be their son. He wished that they would at least tell him nice work, that James would fly with him again, that Lily would teach him how to make potions again, that they would have chess tournaments again, that he would be a part of the family again. But he wasn't, he was replaced by Alan. And that hurt him.

Alan always got what he wanted. As a baby, when he'd start crying, Lily would put everything down to rock him back and forth, saying "Shh, it's alright honey." As a toddler, he'd point to a toy in a store and say 'mine', and James would immediately get it for him. Harry was sure that Alan did not start out a bad guy, but he became the most spoiled seven year old Harry had ever seen by the time he left the house.

James and Lily's reservations for interactions with Harry were not reciprocated by Alan. Alan took every opportunity to flaunt the toys and brooms that he had gotten from his parents in front of Harry's face. And it hurt Harry, despite all the emotional walls that he put around himself. It hurt him to see his parents blatant favoritism toward Alan. They weren't even trying to hide it, they didn't even try to give him half-hearted responses when he asked to play Quidditch or go fly, they weren't even there for him.

And Harry also noticed other changes in the Potters. Before, the whole boy-who-lived incident, they hated the press; hated having their lives invaded by random reporters. After, they became desperate for attention from the media. They would go to Diagon Alley in public on purpose to have the paparazzi of the wizarding world follow them, and would smile and wave to the cameras. Even Alan was catching up on this, and every time he went out in public, he could easily make the cover.

Valamyre looked up from his thoughts of his early childhood and vowed no more. He wouldn't let those bastards take anything else away from him anymore. He switched his thoughts to happy ones: the day he ran away and how he made his first friend.

It was the day before his eleventh birthday, and Harry was excited. Eleven was a huge milestone for wizards, as they began schooling at age eleven. Of course there were primary schools for wizards, which taught how to read and write and taught basic arithmetic, but Harry never went to any of those schools. There was no point; he was already proficient in reading and writing, and knew the basics of calculus from textbooks that he bought from the Muggle world. So Harry was excited that he would finally turn eleven and get to go to Hogwarts. As he rounded down the stairs, he heard the hushed voices of James and Lily and heard the word 'birthday' being mentioned. He snuck into the drawing room, where James and Lily were talking, and eavesdropped on their conversation. And he couldn't believe what he had heard. Not only were the Potters oblivious to the fact that it was his birthday that was coming up the next day, but they were planning Alan's birthday two months in advance. Harry raced back up the stairs with watering eyes. While they hadn't remembered any of his previous birthdays, this one was special; this one was his eleventh birthday. Harry decided that he would have none of it. He couldn't live with people who didn't love him, and the Potters didn't care about him. He decided that he would run away from the messiness of the Potter household.

So Harry took a piece of Floo powder, confidently said 'Diagon Alley', and was whisked away into the world, finally free from the Potters. He drained his trust vault of all the money he could withdraw at a time (25 galleons) and put it in a weightless bag. Harry counted his money and realized that he did not have enough to stay for a month in Diagon Alley. He headed over to Knockturn Alley for some cheaper accommodations.

Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley differed in many ways. While Diagon Alley was known for its cleanliness, professionalism, and its high prices, Knockturn Alley was known for the exact opposite. You could always find cheap things at Knockturn Alley, however, it was very dirty and very unprofessional. The auror department turned a blind eye towards the happenings in Knockturn Alley, making the sale of dark items and illegal drugs possible. It was also the cheapest place to live; one could rent a room at Knockturn Alley for 1 sickle a night; whereas at Diagon Alley, rooms were at least 1 galleons per night. The wizarding monetary system was extremely bizarre. There were seventeen sickles in a galleon and twenty nine knuts in a sickle, where a sickle was approximately equal to five pounds in the English monetary system. Regardless, Harry made his way toward the small ratty hotel on Knockturn Alley, attracting weird glances along the way. Harry had been to Knockturn Alley before, to get his trace removed, but that time he had never attracted any weird glances. Harry wondered why people were staring at him.

Suddenly, an old man ran in front of him, being chased by two younger men. Harry momentarily paused, befuddled as to what was going on, and why everyone was staring at him. He then felt the cold sensation of a wand being pressed against his neck, and was apparated away.

As Harry regained his senses after one terrible form of travel, he realized that he had forgotten to change into his twenty year old disguise. He was a ten year old kid walking alone on Knockturn Alley; of course people were looking at him weirdly. The man pressed his wand to Harry's neck again, and Harry realized that it was a now or never situation. He had to escape immediately. Whirling around, catching his captor by surprise, he drew both his wands to his hands and shielded himself from his captor's onslaught of spells. Since Harry couldn't apparate yet, he was stuck there, so he decided to fight. He seemed to be in an abandoned dock, with many boxes that he could use to his advantage. Banishing two of the boxes at his captor, Harry ducked a stunning spell and dodged a fire spell, both of which would have severely hurt him. He had to step up his game. Harry continued dueling his captor, with the man's eyes widening in surprise at Harry's skill. Here was a ten year old boy who could probably defeat most sixth years in a fight. But Harry realized that he couldn't win; the best spell he knew was a stunning spell, and his captor seemed well-versed in the dark arts. Harry decided to pull a desperate move, so shielding with his shadow wolf wand, Harry built up power in his ice Phoenix wand. Harry hid behind a box, building up power, and finally the power was to great. Harry recognized this, so closed his eyes, threw his wand out, and shielded with his shadow wand. Immediately, the wand exploded.

Harry's wand explosion sent pieces of shrapnel from the wand flying in all directions, and released a blinding white light as magical energy being dissipated by a wand. This technique could only be achieved by the very powerful, and sacrificed the wand in order to blind the opponent. And it was not a temporary blinding; Harry's captor's retinas were burnt and he would never see again.

Harry quickly took the offensive with his one wand and sent his captor flying with a strong stunning spell. His captor had a grisled face with a large mane of hair. Harry tied him up with a quick wave of his wand, and took away his wand. He didn't know where he was, and didn't know what to do, so he decided to take his captors appearance so that if anyone was supposed to come for his captor, he'd come for Harry. Hiding his captor from sight and sticking a tracer in his pocket, Harry set off to explore his surroundings.

It seemed that this dock was built in the middle of nowhere, for what purpose Harry didn't know. As he walked back over to shore, Harry realized that he was amidst a dense forest, and that there was no way out. With nothing better to do, Harry sat on one of the boxes, waiting for someone to come, keeping an eye on his prisoner. He was beginning to fall asleep, when he heard a loud voice calling out "Greyback." Thinking that he had to respond to this, he looked over to where the voice was coming from. It came from a large man who seemed ripped and had a lot of muscle on his arms. Harry quickly responded.

"Yeah," he said.

"Did ya get any?" the man asked.

Harry's mind was working furiously at this point, and realized that Greyback was part of a kidnapping group. Taking the only possible option he said "Damn, the aurors are getting smarter. They set up a metamorphagus as bait, dressed as a little girl. I tried to kidnap her, she beat the shit outta me. I apparated here just in time, or I'd 'ave been arrested."

"Goddammit, man. Seriously, why are you so incompetent? That's the third time you've come back empty handed this week," the man said.

"I can't apparate," Harry replied. "My magic's been short-term-traced. Can you take me back to HQ?"

"Fine, but this is the last time I'm covering for you." the man said, grudgingly extending his hand. "Grab on."

Harry extended his own palm and grabbed the man's hand. The man took him inside a large building devoid of furniture, and Harry was appalled by what he saw. There were at least one hundred children in the building, each in a cage of their own. Harry wondered if he was going to be held in these cages if he were trapped. Harry had read stories about brave heroes who saved the day, and decided that that's what he was going to be. He quickly followed the other man into a small office-like room. There were three other men in there, one of them being the obvious leader.

"Ah Greyback, so nice of you to join us. And this is what, your third unsuccessful day this week." he said. "Now, I have gathered you all here for the little contest that we have had between the members of our snatching organization. Pierre," he said, gesturing toward the man leaning against the wall. "Caught forty children this month. Marcus," he said, gesturing to the man who had dragged Harry in there. "Caught thirty-five. Which leaves only you, Greyback, who has only caught thirty."

Harry bit his lip in anger. "Well I don't see you catching any children," he said, taking the aggressive path.

The leader of the gang chuckled, a low and deep-throated laugh. "You dare, you little wolfy? You dare even suggest that you're better than me. My my, this is out of character even for you."

'Wolfy?' Harry inwardly questioned. "Well, I guess it's time for the contest to come to an end. You, wolfy, have won," the man said. "Which means you get the grand prize of a duel with me. Oh, it'll be fun, I assure you of that."

Harry drew his wand and sent a quick stunner, only for it to be batted away. "You'll have to try better than that, wolfy. But this is no place to duel, let's go up to the arena." the leader said.

"Very well," Harry replied, as they traveled to a crudely built arena in the middle of all the children. They watched eager to see what was going to happen, and Harry offered them a sympathetic smile. He was inwardly cursing, as he couldn't use the same trick as last time. He only had one wand with him. Not only was he at a disadvantage because he couldn't use the trick, but he was also disadvantaged because he only had one wand. He needed two in order to have an advantage over the man. And the man probably knew more spells than he did.

It also seemed that these men were not very bright. Harry had just told Marcus, whoever he was, that his magic was short-term-traced, and yet he was letting Harry fight in a duel.

"You need a lesson in humility. Begin," the leader said.

He rapid-fire cursed three stunning spells at Harry, quite an impressive feat. Harry slid under them, and cast his own stunning spell, which the leader instantly dispelled with a wave of his wand.

"Come on wolfy, you're better than that." the leader said. Harry grit his teeth in frustration, until he realized that he had Greyback's wand. If he exploded that ... but no, the kids. They would be blind, and Harry couldn't do that.

Harry silently battled the leader of the gang until he realized something very important. The man always leaned on his right foot when casting a spell, leaving his left foot vulnerable. Conjuring up some knives around him, Harry waved his wand, sending them all at the man's left shoe right when the man cast a Cruciatus curse straight at him. Harry's plan had worked, the knives all impaled the man's foot, causing him to gasp in pain. Unfortunately, Harry had it worse; he had to experience more pain than he ever had before.

The pain wasn't physical; there was nothing wrong with him physically. It was all in his head. Harry felt the most intense headache that he had ever felt. Realizing that it was all just a mental battle, and that this was a battle of wills, Harry strengthened himself through the pain. He closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and fought back. And he soon realized that by fighting back against the Cruciatus, he had taken their battle from the physical plane to the mental one.

And from there, the battle was clearly Harry's. The gang leader's mediocre shields could barely keep out a novice to Legimency; let alone Harry who was six years in and a prodigy at the art. Harry cleared his mind of all the pain and inflicted it back on the gang leader. And the pain was too much for him, it was too much for anyone to bear, so the leader passed out.

Wiping the sweat off his brow, Harry pocketed his own wand, and bound the leader of the gang, taking his wand.

"Greyback, what are you doing?" Marcus asked.

"I'm the new leader of this gang, not this bastard. If you have a problem with it, fight me," he said.

Marcus decided that battling him would not be wise. After seeing Greyback's sudden increase in power, and watching him beat their almost invincible leader, he realized that Greyback would not be a good enemy to have. Pierre agreed and stepped down.

"Okay, now I want you two to come back here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, we'll work out what to do then. Dismissed," he yelled. The two clumsily apparated out. Harry relaxed and changed form back to his normal form, but with blond hair and black eyes in order to not be recognized. All of the children clapped for his victory over the evil snatchers. Harry alohamora'd all the locks and enervated the leader of the gang.

"Wha-where am I?" the leader asked.

"OK, listen to me carefully," Harry said. "You are going to tell us how to get out of here and how to get into wizarding England, and then you will take down any and all wards that surround this place. When the aurors get here, you will happily submit to them and their will, and they will take you to Azkaban, where you belong."

"And why should I listen to you snot-nosed brats?" he asked.

"You know, I was kinda hoping you would say that," Harry said.

Harry had decided to delve into the man's mind, seeing as he was a criminal and a kidnapper. Making sure to stay away from all kidnapping memories, for Harry didn't want to see those, Harry painfully dug his way to the information on the wards surrounding the warehouse. There was a Fidelius on the house, with the man as the secret keeper, so Harry wrote down the address so he wouldn't forget. He learned that there was a one-way floo out of the house, and that the house was located in the middle of a forest in England. Making sure to write all of this down before going back into the man's mind, Harry finished getting his incriminating information. He stupefied the man again and turned to the children. It seemed that the oldest one, a teenager by the name of Charles Weasley, had sorted them out.

"Woah, mate, that was wicked," Charles said, laughing until it rasped into a sharp cough, betraying his illness. "We need to get out of here though, so do you know the way out?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "There's a one-way floo upstairs. But first things first, we need to get these bastards in prison, so that this doesn't happen to anyone else. Does anyone have a family member in the Auror department?"

One of the smallest girls, about seven years old by Harry's estimate, raised her hand.

"And who are you?" Harry asked.

"I'm Susan Bones," she stuttered out shyly.

"Any relation to Amelia Bones?" Harry asked.

"She's my aunt," Susan said. "I was just kidnapped today."

"Perfect," Harry replied. "Okay, well, it's about three in the morning," he said, checking his watch. "I've got to get going, Susan, make sure that you give these to your aunt," he said, taking out a the piece of paper he took notes on. "And tell her to be here at 8, sharp. Oh, and here," he gave her the magical frequency detector that he used to trace Greyback, "Is the third man of the operation."

"Where are you going?" a girl in the back asked. She had long blonde hair and seemed very pretty in Harry's standards. She had a small French accent, but it didn't impede her speaking English.

"I've got to get out of town," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

Realizing that since he looked nothing like his normal self, Harry might as well tell the truth, he said "I ran away from home when I ran into the snatchers. I want to make a new life somewhere else."

"Oh," the girl said.

"What's your name?" Harry asked.

She seemed to ponder it for a second before replying "Anna. What's yours?" she asked.

Harry decided that then would be a good time to make a new identity for himself. After all, what's a better start for his identity than saving a bunch of children. "I'm Valamyre," he said. And he took that name from that day on.

When it came time to floo out, everyone floo'd to their own house, everyone except for Anna and Valamyre. Anna seemed hesitant about something, and when Valamyre gestured for her to go, she waited.

"Your name's not really Valamyre, is it?" she asked.

"Course not," Valamyre said.

"How'd you come up with it?" she asked.

"Made it up," he replied. He had taken the name Vladimir, which had always sounded cool to him because it was associated with Romania, and in turn, vampires, and converted it into Valamyre. "Is Anna your real name?"

"No," she said.

"Are you going to tell it to me?" he asked.

"Are you going to tell me yours?" she replied.

"No," he replied.

"Well then no," she said.

"You ran away too," Valamyre said, picking it up from her shifty behavior. "Why?" he asked.

"None of your business," Anna said.

"Well, what do you want to do with your life?" Valamyre asked.

"Well, at the top of my list was get kidnapped by a bunch of cochons, and next was end up here in this house with you," she said sarcastically.

"Ha, ha. No, seriously," he said.

"Well, I always wanted to go to Australia," she said.

"Really, Australia," Harry said. "Why?"

"I've always liked kangaroos," she said.

"Well you're in luck. I have enough money to get us there," he said.

"Us?" she asked.

"Well, I'm running away, you're running away, why shouldn't we go together?" he asked. "Come on, it'll be fun. Besides, you can't go by yourself. Remember what happened last time?"

"But how are you going to go there? We need ID." she asked.

"You're forgetting that I'm a metamorphagus," Valamyre said. "I can shift to whatever ID we get."

"But I don't want to go with you. I don't even know you." she said.

"I'm Valamyre, you're Anna, what else is there to know?" Valamyre asked. "Look, you can't head there alone, I wanna go with you, I don't see the problem here."

"Ugh, alright, fine," she said. "Now how do we get to Australia?"

Valamyre smirked as he thought of Anna's initial attitude toward him. When he and Anna set off to Australia, they had quite an interesting time. Realizing that they didn't have enough to go all the way to Australia, Valamyre had decided to double it by gambling it all on a Quidditch match. They lost all their money after that, and had to stow away on a Muggle ship to get to Australia. It took them three months, but it was fun all the same, and Anna soon became his best friend. And then she became even more.


	3. Chapter 2: To England

**MERRY CHRISTMAS**

**I'm not Christian, but I got a Galaxy S3 for Christmas, and I've been having a good luck streak for the past few months, so I thought why not? So, I worked on it, finished the chapter today, and, well, here it is!**

**Anyways, I was having a bit of trouble writing the after they got to Australia part, so I've decided to cut to Harry's travel to the UK and then include flashbacks back to Harry's journey to Australia in subsequent chapters. If that bothers any of you, let me know. I probably can't do anything to change it at this point, but if I get a lot of negative response for this, I guess I will. Thank you.**

**And I'm not going to portray the boy-who-lived as a mindless powerless idiot. Not only is that cliche, but that's just taking the easy way out.**

**Finally, 52 reviews for 1.5 chapters, are you guys on steroids or something. Seriously, that's way more than I ever expected. Keep it up, I guess.**

**Chapter 2: To England**

**England (2012)**

"POTTER STINKS" a tall seventh year Slytherin shouted at an annoyed Alan Potter.

"Yeah, well screw you too," Potter replied. He was fed up with everyone's treatment of him over the past few days. Normally he was the star of the school, the one everyone looked up to, but now, he had a worse social standing than Neville Longbottom. Longbottom, the kid who he used to make fun of for being fat and pudgy, was now cooler than him. And it wasn't even his fault too.

Of course, he had considered putting his name into the Goblet of Fire. He knew that he could defeat the crowd's favorite to win, Cedric Diggory. After all, he was the boy-who-lived. Why wouldn't he be Hogwarts champion? But he had tried as hard as he could to get his name into that Goblet of Fire, and he had failed. Miserably.

And then the goblet reveals four names. Four! And since Harry Potter was dead, he was the goto Hogwarts champion. Which normally, Alan would enjoy, after all, he loved fame and loved the attention. But people were blaming him for putting his name in the goblet, no matter how much he tried to deny it. Cedric Diggory kept glaring at him, and the normally docile Hufflepuffs hexed him repeatedly in the hallways and between classes. And the press had a field day on that too; normally Alan was written about in a good light, but it seemed that the Prophet wanted to mix things up by denouncing Potter as a cheat and a liar. Ron, his best friend, had abandoned him, leaving him all alone to face the first task. And the annoying know-it-all, Granger, kept insisting on helping him; didn't she know he didn't need help. Every year he topped her in the exams, the ones that mattered, namely Transfiguration and Charms. Well he would show them; he would show them all the Potter skills. He did defeat Voldemort as a child, winning a silly tri-wizard tournament would not prove to be a challenge.

And when everyone came crying back to him saying how sorry they were for thinking he entered the tournament, he would take back his rightful position. He was king of Hogwarts; only him, no other. Cedric Diggory be damned, he was going to regain his throne.

But for now, he would have to wonder who to take to the Yule Ball. As a champion, he had known about it ahead of time, and he realized that with his lowered social standing, no one would want to go with him. He might even have to take- dare he say it- a loser like Granger. Or even worse, Loony Lovegood. No, he couldn't, he wouldn't. His standing would drop so low at that point, he would be worse than Colin Creevy. COLIN.

No, he had to regain his popularity back fast, so that he could get with one of the hot girls like Cho Chang or Lavender Brown. And if what he had heard about the Yule Ball was correct, second base was a minimum.

And that brought him back to his original quandary. He had to emerge victorious in the first task, so that people saw him as he rightfully was: Hogwarts's champion, Hogwarts's king. He had to defeat the Bulgarian menace, Krum, and the French chick, Bedel. And maybe he could get with Bedel after, she was insanely hot and pretty rich too.

Unfortunately, bringing back victory relied on his knowledge, which meant that he needed to head down to the library and study. The Moody man was giving him the creeps, he kept following Alan around, asking him how he was doing with the tournament. If Alan didn't know any better, he would have thought that Moody was a stalker, or one of his fans. But Moody did give him some valuable advice. His one major strength, above all, was flying, and he knew that the task had to do with dragons from what Hagrid had told him. So, all he had to do was summon his broom from the stands, and outfly the dragon. It should have been a piece of cake.

But Alan couldn't risk it, he had to prepare for every possible scenario. Despite his arrogance, when Alan put his mind to something, there was nothing that could stop him from achieving it. That was how he defeated Granger in charms and transfiguration three years in a row, that was how he saved the philosopher's stone, learned how to cast a patronus, and defeated the basilisk, and that was how he was going to come first in the first task. And doing that would require learning all about how to defeat a dragon. So Alan hit up the library, and started studying up dragons.

* * *

Alan woke up at seven p.m. after falling asleep reading about the Conjunctivitis curse, a curse that could be aimed at a dragon's eyes in order to make it blind. He realized that the Conjunctivitis curse combined with his broom strategy would be the perfect plan to defeat the dragon. So he headed off to dinner, a bit late, but he didn't really care; after all, the Hogwarts champion did get special privileges that included not showing up to pretty much whatever he wanted to. He didn't even have to take the tests at the end of the year; he could just waive them and take fifth year classes. Not that Alan would ever do that of course, Granger would never let him live it down.

He leisurely walked over to the open Great Hall, and immediately noticed that something was off. The normally loud noises of the chatter between students during the meals was not present; instead, it seemed that one unidentifiable voice was addressing the Hogwarts population. Rushing off to the great hall not to miss the speech, Alan could barely make out what the voice was saying. He opened the large doors to the Great Hall, and immediately all eyes turned toward him. The loud noise that the doors made trumped the quiet chatter going on in the background during the man's speech. But Alan didn't care about that, he held the gaze of the most beautiful woman on the planet. And he resolved that he had to have her. For a moment, everything was still, than he saw Dumbledore turn back to the man standing in the center of the great hall.

"Just who the hell are you?" Dumbledore asked.

"Oh, you don't recognize me?" the man said. "My name is Valamyre, though that will probably sound unfamiliar to you. Previously, my name was Harry, Harry Potter." He glanced up at the staff table to take in their response to his name. A red-headed witch, no doubt Lily Evans, gave a soft gasp at hearing his name, and refused to meet his eyes. Valamyre had previously addressed the Australian public, revealing his true identity and telling them that he would be traveling to England in order to take care of business there. After that, Anna had decided to go with him, as she didn't want to be away from him, and she was holding onto his hand at the moment. Valamyre wasn't known as the ruler of Australia outside of Australia, so his identity would be safe, and Valamyre didn't think he could go through using the name Harry Potter on a daily basis. He had cut all ties to that identity, and in turn, the name. Valamyre thought back to the day when he learnt Anna's true name.

* * *

"Hey Val," Anna said to Valamyre. It was the day before they made landfall in Australia, and Valamyre had grown very close to Anna. Despite her somewhat snarky exterior, Anna was everything that Valamyre always wanted in a friend. She was funny, intelligent, nice, and above all, trustworthy. The two were sleeping next to each other in two separate sleeping bags, staring up at the stars and resting. If the two were a bit older, it would actually be quite romantic.

"Yeah," Valamyre responded.

"I think that we should get to know each other," she said.

"We do know each other," Valamyre said.

"No, like get to know each other for real. We are best friends, and I think that we should share our true identity with each other. I'll start," she said. She took a deep breath of air, then said, "My real name is Fleur Delacour."

"My real name is Valamyre," Valamyre said. "I have cut all ties to any former identity that I may have had. But my former name was Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter!" Anna exclaimed. "You must know the British celebrity, Alan Potter!"

"He's my brother. Why'd you think I ran away," Valamyre said.

"Why did you run away?" Anna asked.

"Well, my birth parents, for I do not consider them parents, never really acknowledged my presence. They were never there for me, they only cared about Alan. I was never abused, but I just couldn't be isolated from them, you know. Growing up, my only friends were the books around me. I was largely ignored by every person in my life; the only reason adults would talk to me would be to ask where Alan was. They forgot my birthday every year, they never listened to what I wanted to do, well I guess I just didn't want to be there anymore. I just didn't want to be alone, with no friends, no parents, all alone." he said, absorbed in his own thoughts.

"But you have me," Anna said. "And you'll never be alone again."

"That's right," Valamyre agreed. "I'll never be alone again. So, Fleur Delacour, that's a pretty fancy name. Why did you run away?" he asked.

"It has nothing to do with why you ran away; I was never forgotten, always loved. No, I ran away from home because of what I am. Tell me, Valamyre, what do you know about veela?" she asked.

"Veela? Well, they are generally feared by the wizarding public because they have some sort of an allure that attracts males, making them do stupid things. It is said that stronger wizards can see through veela allures. I personally found that something doesn't add up in wizarding descriptions. They tend to blame the veela for the problems of wizards." Valamyre said.

"Well, I am a veela," Anna said. "Veela are different than how they describe veela in the books. There are no half-veela or quarter-veela, for there are no male veela, so how could there possibly be any full veela if the books were correct? Veela are heavily alienated from society because of their allure. While in the UK, they are slightly segregated against, in France, they are completely equal to wizards and witches. That's not the problem. The problem is that veela are lusted after by boys, lots of them. And some veela take it in stride; they string many boys along, only to break all of their hearts. But I can't do that. And every day, my parents and my friends tell me how pretty I am. They don't know the half of it; I'd gladly trade away any beauty I had in order to be normal. Being a veela isn't a gift, it's a curse. And soon all my friends will grow distant from me because of what I am. Or they would, if I hadn't run away."

"Okay, so why Anna?" Valamyre asked.

"Anna is a plain name, it's a normal name. Fleur Delacour, that sounds like some sort of bad rhyme. I'd rather have a simpler name." she said.

"I see," Valamyre said.

"Beauty is not a gift; it is a curse," Anna repeated. "I can't be loved for who I am, only for my beauty."

"I'm sure that some day you'll find someone who loves you for your personality, not your beauty," Valamyre said.

"One can only hope," Anna mused. "Why Valamyre?" she asked.

"Made it up," Valamyre said. "Well, we should probably get some sleep. Big day tomorrow." The two slept with the comfort that they were with someone they could trust.

* * *

Of course, Anna became much more to him than just a friend. But Valamyre stopped his musing and turned back to Albus Dumbledore.

"Harry Potter! Harry, m'boy, you're alive!" he exclaimed.

"Three things, Dumbledore," Valamyre said. "First, my name is Valamyre, not Harry. Second, if my name were Harry, you would not have permission to call me that. And third, I am not, nor will I ever be, your boy."

"Har-" Dumbledore began, but stopped under Valamyre's tough gaze. "Very well, Valamyre. How are you alive?"

"Why did you assume I was dead?" Valamyre asked.

"How did you survive so long on your own? Where did you go? What did you do?" he asked.

"I went to Australia, met my mentor Zephyr, and stayed with him until Alexander was overthrown in 2010. After that, I was hired to teach at AMA, Australian Magical Academy." Valamyre said. It was true, though only partially. After the war, he became a guest professor in his spare time at AMA.

"What did you teach?" Dumbledore asked.

"A course called Applied Magic." Valamyre said.

"Applied Magic? What's that?" a curious Professor McGonagall asked.

"Well, the class is a requirement for students who want to get their SMD-" he began.

"SMD?" Dumbledore asked.

"Secondary Magical Degree." he said. Seeing their blank faces, he continued. "In the Australian schooling system, after the first five years of schooling, you take the MET's in your chosen subjects. After that, assuming you scored Acceptable or higher in at least four of the MET's, you will receive your Primary Magical Degree. Then, you may choose to major in a specific subject, and sixth and seventh year courses go much more indepth than first through fifth year courses. But, you choose a major, you study your butt off, and hopefully you get your Secondary Magical Degree. Now, I taught Applied Magic, which was a requirement for anyone who wanted to get their SMD in magical engineering. After receiving a Secondary Magical Degree, students may opt for a tertiary or quaternary magical degree, or they may choose to exit school and go make a living. Seriously, England has none of that?"

"What made you qualified to teach a seventh year course? You should be in your seventh year yourself," McGonagall said.

"You are talking to the inventor of the only protection amulet in existence," Valamyre unveiled. He had always had a flair for the dramatic, and loved revealing information about himself slowly.

"Protection Amulet? What protection amulet?" Dumbledore asked.

"Try to throw a spell at me," Valamyre said. "Or shoot me with a gun. You can't, my protection amulet draws from my own magic to protect me, deflecting all bullets or projectiles and conjuring walls to block all spells. I can only be affected by the most basic forms of magic."

"I find that hard to believe," McGonagall said.

"Then by all means. Attack me," Valamyre said. McGonagall drew her wand and shot a quick Stupefy at Valamyre, only for a wall to be conjured right in front of the Stupefy, blocking it from hitting him and vanishing immediately after its task was done.

"The amulet is equipped with a supercomputer. It knows what to do. I don't even have to fight anymore." Valamyre said.

"That's quite an accomplishment, Valamyre, but that is drawing back from the matter at hand. What are you doing here?" Dumbledore asked.

"I believed I was entered into some sort of magical device known as the goblet of fire." he said.

"You were," Dumbledore agreed. "And if you do not compete, you will lose your magic."

"I find that hard to believe," Valamyre said. "If this goblet had the power to strip contestants of their magic against their will, than why did you not just stick Voldemort's name in the Goblet of Fire?"

"Well but-" Dumbledore began.

"No, it is clear that the Goblet of Fire cannot have that power, or else it would be the most powerful artefact in the universe. However, if it is true that a magical contract was created by the Goblet of Fire, then it is clear that the magical contract could not have been made by me, as it is impossible to make a magical contract on someone else's behalf. The most likely scenario is that someone created a magical contract with the Goblet of Fire saying that I would compete. If so, then I have no obligations to compete in the tri-wizard tournament, and whoever entered me into the Goblet of Fire would lose his or her magic if I do not compete. May I inspect the Goblet of Fire?" Valamyre asked.

"You may," Dumbledore said, gesturing to the center podium where the goblet was resting.

Valamyre stared at it for a couple of seconds, then cast a few revealing charms on the goblet itself. "Interesting," he said. "It seems that the Goblet of Fire works on an intent based system. When you enter a person's name into the Goblet of Fire, the act of entering the name signifies that you are making a magical contract that the person would compete if chosen. Now in most cases, people enter their own names into the Goblet, which means that they're making a magical contract on their own behalf. But, it also seems that my hypothesis is correct. So someone entered my name into the Goblet of Fire, and since I have no obligation to compete, I want to know who did it."

"Who did what?" Dumbledore asked.

"Who entered my name into the Goblet of Fire," Valamyre replied.

"How can we possibly know who entered your name?" Dumbledore asked.

"Well fine then. I just won't compete, and the person who entered my name will lose his or her magic." Valamyre said. "And then it should be fairly obvious to deduce who entered my name into the Goblet. Or someone could just come out with it, and maybe I'll be nice and compete in this silly tournament."

"Valamyre, you cannot possibly expect someone to come out with this information." Dumbledore said.

"Fine, then I won't compete," Valamyre retorted.

"You cannot possibly let an innocent person die," Dumbledore said.

"I have nothing against the act of committing suicide, or in this case, loss of magic. It is not my problem if someone threatens to kill himself if I do not do an action that they require. I really do not care. The fact that I am willing to compete in this tournament if I find out who put my name into the Goblet shows that I am an extremely benevolent wizard." Valamyre said. "So, I repeat again. Who put my name into the Goblet of Fire. Speak now, or lose your magic."

"I did," a lady on the staff table admitted. The Hogwarts population gasped, for that lady was none other than Muggle Study's professor, Lily Potter.

"You!" Valamyre angrily enunciated.

"Yes," she said.

"Why?" he asked. "I had escaped your grasp six years ago. I don't want to be anywhere near you."

"Harry-" Lily began.

"It's Valamyre," Valamyre said.

"You'll always be Harry Potter," Lily argued.

"I can be whatever the hell I want to be, and you have no say in it," Valamyre said.

"Har-" Lily said.

"Call me Valamyre or I'm leaving," Valamyre said.

"H-" Lily began

"Va-la-myre," Valamyre said. "It's really not that hard."

"Valamyre," Lily relented. "I'm sorry, we're all sorry. I needed to find you, I needed to know whether you were alive or not."

"Yeah," Valamyre said. "So you decided to entire my name into the Goblet of Fire on the off-chance that I'd actually hear the news if I had gotten selected. Now I know that you would think that a magical contract would form between me and the goblet, so you'd potentially risk my life in order to know whether I'm alive or not."

"But-" Lily said.

"NO, you forgot about me, I left, that's it. You sticking my name into the Goblet of Fire has nothing to do with that. I'm never going to be your son again. I'll compete in this tournament because I don't want you to die, but that's about it." he said.

"Who's that girl?" she asked, finally realizing that Valamyre brought someone. It seemed that in Valamyre's presence, with his whole revelation of his previous name, Anna was forgotten by most of the population of Hogwarts.

"She is my girlfriend," Valamyre said, guarded. "Anna."

"Well, Valamyre," Dumbledore said. "That's all great, but you have just interrupted our dinner. You may stay in the Gryffindor dorms-"

"Gryffindor? Why Gryffindor?" Valamyre asked.

"All Potters are Gryffindors," Dumbledore said.

"Well I am not a Potter," Valamyre retorted.

"Either stay in Gryffindor tower or leave." Dumbledore roared.

"I hold all the cards, old man. I leave, she dies." Valamyre said, jerking his thumb toward Lily.

"Valamyre, you can't honestly-" Dumbledore began.

"We've had this conversation already. She entered my name into the goblet, she pays the price. I'm actually doing her quite the favor, believe it or not." Valamyre said.

"Very well, where do you want to stay?" Dumbledore asked.

"Hmm, from what I've heard, Slytherin would seem like the best house. Too bad half of them are poser death-eater wannabees." he said.

"And I've heard that Gryffindor is half-filled with brainless foolhardy idiots," Anna said.

"So it's between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff." he said. "I'd rather go to Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff though fine, is a bit too- what's the word- Gryffindorish for lack of a better word, for my tastes."

"Very well," Dumbledore said. "Take a seat at the Ravenclaw table, I will ask the house-elves to prepare your sleeping arrangements. You shall be bunking with the seventh years, correct."

"Fine," Valamyre said. "Please prepare one large bed, Anna and I will be sharing."

"The dorms are gender-specific; we could give you a bed in the married couple rooms," Dumbledore explained. Valamyre seemed like quite the powerful young wizard if his demonstration with the amulet was to be taken into account, and if what he said was true, he would be phenomenal. In addition, his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, which meant he at least had to be competent. Even if his attitude needed to be worked on, Valamyre could be a great servant of the light. He could also be a future death-eater; he would have to make sure that didn't happen. Dumbledore needed to gain Valamyre's trust.

"Fine," Valamyre said.

"Very well, shall we commence the feast," Dumbledore said. Seeing no objections, he toasted to Valamyre's arrival, and sat everybody down.

Alan was not happy with the way this was playing out. Now, his older brother had returned, with his girl. It didn't matter that he had just seen her five minutes ago; she was going to be his. She was the most beautiful girl that Alan had ever seen, and he would find some way to take her from his older brother. He would start by beating Harry in the tri-wizard tournament.

And who did Harry even think he was. Calling himself Valamyre, pretending he was superior to everyone else. He would always be Harry, his loser older brother who James and Lily never loved, who's face he could always rub his stuff into. He would never be better than Alan. "Just see, little Harry," Alan thought. "Soon everything you've ever loved will be snatched from you, just as you snatched the attention from me. I will have your girl, I will have the tri-wizard cup, and I will have your title. By the time I'm done with you, Valamyre will be a distant memory. You'll be the loser Harry Potter again. Just wait and see."

Valamyre was oblivious to his younger brother's musings as he took a seat at the Ravenclaw table and greeted a few familiar faces from the kidnapping incident. As the feast commenced, he made a few acquaintances with the Ravenclaw members, and learnt about the school's workings.

**AN: Please tell me what you think of this chapter. Honestly, I don't think it was as good as my other chapters, and I edited it a few times, but I'm just leaving it at this. Thank You, and have a good holiday season.**


	4. Chapter 3: Valamyre Goes to School

**AN: I got a few critical reviews to that last chapter, and yeah, I get all your criticisms, and I agree with most of them. That chapter was quite rushed; I started it on Christmas Eve and finished it in two days, and I didn't spend as much time editing it as I should have. To specific reviewers:**

**-Tha Golden Boy: Cedric is not competing, so that's just four competitors. Hope that clears it up.**

**-Triforce Guardian: I'm not trying to show the Potters in a favorable light. Lily's reason for putting Harry's name in the Goblet is more nefarious than she puts on.**

**-Toby860: No, I am not planning on ending it right after the tournament. Harry's reason for staying in the UK is to take it over. I'm not sure how I'm going to end it yet, but I'm planning it on going on further from the tournament.**

**-Guest: Harry wants to be in the tournament not to save Lily, to take over Europe and eventually the magical world.**

**-calamitykid: yeah, that does seem like a better idea. I wish I had thought of doing that.**

**-kemo9005: well, Harry isn't trying to hide his amulet's properties. He doesn't think that everyone can safely replicate it, and it's not one of his secret weapons; he's going to use it in the tri-wizard tournament. Also, for the flashback thing, I'll do it in the future. This chapter I'm not doing that because it's not a flashback, I'm just going back to 2005 for the chapter.**

**-Mr. T: I'll admit, I was inspired by Jarvis when thinking of the idea of the amulet. But it's not an exact copy, and it can do much more than Jarvis can do.**

**And I'm sorry that it's been a while since I've updated, I just have a whole lot to do. Finals are coming up, and I have three bolder-line grades, so I really have to study.**

**Chapter 3: Valamyre Goes to School**

**[2005]**

"Land! Glorious Land!" Anna exclaimed as they disboarded the ship.

"I don't know, I kind of liked the ocean," Valamyre said. "While sure, it wasn't stable, the gentle to and fro of the ship was calming to me."

"I hate the ocean," Anna said. "I never want to go on another boat voyage again."

"Even if it's whale watching? I thought you said you loved whales?" said Valamyre.

"I'll find a way to do it from a helicopter," Anna said. "Or a broomstick, or really any flying device."

"That's lame," Valamyre said. "Anyways, our next step is to find the magical section of Australia. Now how are we going to do that?"

"Well, we could send a distress signal, but I think that the English frequency is not the same as the Australian frequency." Anna said. The English distress signal was a specific spell that when cast properly would alert the Aurors to the caster's presence. Every time a person cast a spell, his or her own magical frequency was embedded into a spell. Multiple people could have the same magical frequency, but it was unlikely, as there were so many. The English Distress Signal was a purposefully high-powered spell that would change the magical frequency, and emit that long range. The English purposefully made their magical frequency so low that it was impossible to be gotten by any normal English magical citizen. Since Harry and Anna didn't know the Australian Distress Signal's frequency, they couldn't use it.

Interestingly enough, the principle used for the English Distress Signal was not used for the magical trace. This greatly confounded Valamyre, as the magical government had a way to safely figure out which children were using magic. But, then again, it would also harm the pure-blood families whose children could not practice magic at home, and the government did not want to harm the pure-bloods.

"Yeah, and if they found us sending the distress signal, they'd realize that we were kids, not adults. Then we might get our wands snapped. No, we have to be more devious about it." Valamyre said.

"Hmm, well, you could pretend to be my father, and tell them we got lost," Anna said.

"Yes, but what would our names be?" Valamyre asked.

"Well you could be Harry Valamyre," Anna began. Valamyre crinkled his nose in disgust at the first name. "Fine, Henry Valamyre. And I'll be Anna Valamyre. We can pretend that we're Muggleborns."

"No, I still don't think that's gonna work," Valamyre said. "You can't send the distress signal unless you're actually in distress, or there are legal repercussions. Besides, we don't know that it's the same frequency of signal."

"We can just brute-force it," Anna suggested.

"Wouldn't work; there are an infinite number of frequencies and the English Distress Signal is accurate to within .0001 MF's," he said. "So even then, to get to MF 10,000, assuming that the Australian Distress Signal's magical frequency is less than 10,000, we would have to test one hundred million frequencies. It's not going to work; we'll need to think of another way to get into the Australian magical world."

"Fine then, what's your brilliant idea?" Anna asked.

"Well, we're striking out Distress Signal, so I guess what we'll have to do is find the Muggle gateway. It can't be that hard; one in every ten thousand Muggles is a Muggle-born wizard." he said.

"That's your brilliant plan," Anna scorned. "We're just going to wait until we can magically find the Muggle gateway,"

"I've got it!" Harry said. "All we have to do to find the magical world is build a magic detector, similar to the English Distress Signal's detector."

"How are you going to build a detector?" Anna asked.

"Well, I know the theory behind it, I know the spell I have to cast, all I have to do is set it toward a magical frequency. If I make it really vague, I'm sure we'll pick something up." said Valamyre

"Okay, then go build it," Anna said. "We'll see if it really works."

"I will," Valamyre said.

The resulting device represented a sundial in a sense; it was a small round device with an arm that spun and pointed toward the direction of magic being casted. The device was callibrated to pick up between 200,000 and 250,000 MF's, which was about the average magical frequency, and it would point in the direction of most magic. Since the device was crafted very crudely, it's range was only 50 kilometers, but Valamyre counted on there being a magical hub nearby. Valamyre activated the device, and allowed it to swing freely. It ended up pointing north.

"Okay Anna, let's follow the device," Valamyre said.

"What, it actually works?" Anna asked, surprised.

"Yes," he said. "It'll point us toward a magical location."

"Well then let's go," Anna suggested.

* * *

Valamyre spent the remainder of the money that he had acquired at The Wizard's Inn, in order to rent a room for him and Anna for a month, the month of July. After getting some wizarding identification (by pretending they were Muggle-born and confounding an Australian native into thinking he was their father), the first thing that Valamyre did was sign him and Anna up for school; more specifically, Australian Magical Academy. There was a magical fitness test which they needed to take to qualify for the school, with fifty percent being the average, sixty-five percent being the qualification, and eighty percent being the level required for a scholarship. Less than 5 percent of the students that went to AMA qualified for the scholarship, but Valamyre wasn't too worried. His skill would probably be enough to get them both scholarships, and he had been giving Anna lessons with a wand that he had bought her from Ollivanders, so she would probably be fine by herself. While Valamyre reckoned that he didn't really need an education, he wouldn't get anywhere without a magical degree, so it was in his best interests to go to a magical school. They would take the magical fitness test in a week, so they had a little time to go over lessons. But Valamyre and Anna were tired; after all, they had just spent the entire day trying to find an access point to the wizarding Australia. The children crashed on their separate twin beds, excited that they had finally made it.

That week passed by quickly for Valamyre and Anna. They spent the mornings exploring wizarding Australia, through floo and travel guides, and visiting some of the major landmarks in the area. The two spent the afternoons and evenings studying for the magical fitness test. The test expected a high standard of learning for prospective students. Children were allowed to purchase wands at any age in Australia, and were recommended to do so at age five or six, which was about the time that Valamyre got his first wand. While they didn't start learning spells until age nine, for their magic had not been fine-tuned, most children were able to send out sparks through their wands at young ages. At age nine, the Australian children studied up on magic in order to take the magical fitness test at age eleven. This was also the age when Muggle-born children were introduced to the magical world, so that they would be on almost even-footing with half-blood and pure-blood wizards. The magical fitness test was an important test that would determine the next seven years of these student's educational and social life. Of course there were transferring options available, but the curriculum in different schools differed greatly, meaning that the later you transferred, the harder it would be to catch up.

But Anna eventually got better at her magical work. They studied mainly practical transfigurations, charms, hexes, and curses, as Anna already had a large theoretical exposure to the mechanics of magic. France was much like England in that respect; using magic was not allowed until the user turned eleven. Anna was ready for the test, and Valamyre personally thought she would do very well. The test was composed of a written portion and a practical portion, each containing fifty points. There was a certain extra-credit "wow" factor, which gave a maximum of fifty points, in which the test-taker could show any piece of magic he or she wanted to. The average score for that portion of the test was five points, as it took a lot to impress the testers. Anna was planning on showing her summoning and banishing charms, a standard third year spell at AMA, while Harry was planning on showing his Patronus.

* * *

"Mr. Valamyre," the Headmistress White called out. They were meeting do discuss their scores on the magical fitness test, and their place at AMA. Valamyre and Anna followed into the room.

"I must congratulate you on setting the highest score for the examination. You scored a 145%, easily allowing you to gain a scholarship at AMA," she said.

"Thank you," Valamyre said.

"Now, I must ask, what is your first name?" she asked. "On all of these forms, it's blank. You will need a first name in order to register at AMA. And where are your parents, sir?"

"My parents live in England," Valamyre honestly said. "I ran away from home, which is one of the reasons that I need the scholarship. As for my name, Valamyre is my name. I don't have a first name or a last name, just one name."

"Ah- I see. Well, fret not, we will still accomodate you in our school, Mr. Valamyre," she said. "Now, as for you," turning to Anna. "You had originally scored a solid 86, but due to you exceptional demonstration of magic through your summoning and banishing charms, the testers have given you ten points of extra credit, cementing your scholarship at this institution. We would be honored to have both of you here, and I'm guessing you also don't have a last name," she asked Anna.

"Yes," Anna confirmed.

"I see. Well then, Valamyre and Anna, shall I put you down for our next year's class at AMA?" she said.

"That would be acceptable," Valamyre said.

"Okay. Term starts on the twenty-second of August, I'll give you two a button-activated portkey, and we'll be all set then," she said.

"Excellent," Valamyre said.

* * *

AMA was not a castle like Hogwarts, it had multiple buildings. It had twelve hundred students, and thirty-four professors, with ten buildings housing students, four for classes, two meal halls, one for professor's private offices, two miscellaneous buildings, containing a gym and a library, among other things, and one housing the professors. The buildings were numbered, one to twenty, and Harry lived in building was a large circular courtyard, in between the buildings, and outside the building complex was a Quidditch pitch and a small forest, which grew magical ingredients too large for the greenhouses.

Magical school was okay, in Valamyre's opinion, but it was a bit dull at times. It was never really a challenge for him; he didn't really care about what the professors were saying. But, it was a place to stay, and it was free. Plus, he would get his magical degree for free, which was necessary. But Valamyre didn't feel intellectually challenged. That was until he met a sixth-year named Zephyr Epsilon.

Zephyr was different; the other students shied away from him, almost as if they were ignoring his presence. When Valamyre asked about him, he was always told that Zephyr was crazy. He didn't seem crazy, though he acted very methodologically. Valamyre took to observing him at common meals, and was humored with what he saw. It seemed that Zephyr planned everything out, and everything had to go exactly to plan for him. His napkin always had to be on his right side, not his left, he got incredibly frustrated when the meals were switched, and he followed an exact schedule throughout the day. But Valamyre also knew that he was incredibly smart. At fourth year, a student could opt to apprentice with one of the professors; Zephyr was an apprentice of four. His schedule was incredibly busy, but he made up for it by not doing homework; he thought it was beneath him, and the teachers agreed. He frequently skipped classes, with the teachers not really caring, and every Friday night, he went up to the headmistress's office for a conversation.

Any attempts that Valamyre made to communicate with Zephyr were pointless, for Zephyr would snidely chuckle at him, mutter something under his breath about his lesser intelligence, and go back to doing what he was doing. That was until the first semester results came out.

At AMA, all grades were based on tests, and performance. And Valamyre, as a first year, had scored incredibly well on the tests, setting the bar as the highest average first-year first-semester score since the tests were standardized, beating out Zephyr by five points. Zephyr clearly was not pleased with that, and confronted him one day about it.

"What do you think you're doing?" Zephyr asked.

"What do you mean?" Valamyre asked.

"No one beats me on tests," Zephyr said. "You must have been cheating."

"I didn't cheat, as well you know. It's impossible to cheat on one of these tests," Valamyre said.

"Oh, I know it's possible. I crafted a device to break the charm on the anti-cheating quill as a project for Arithmancy. There are many ways to do it, really, and that's the only logical explanation for this. I am Zephyr Epsilon, and I do not lose." Zephyr said.

"Well obviously you lost this time." Valamyre said. "Besides, if I cheated, how would I cheat on the practicals?"

"There are a multitude of ways, really. Polyjuice potion, Felix Felices, really there are many potions that would allow you to cheat." Zephyr said.

"Well, I did not cheat," Valamyre said.

"Prove it. What are the twelve different uses for dragon's blood." Zephyr asked.

"That's a fourth year question, and you know it," Valamyre said.

"Well, if you're so smart, you should be able to do it," Zephyr defended.

"Fine. 1. When mixed with Threstral blood, it becomes a universal magical solvent. 2. It is highly basic, allowing it to serve as an industrial cleaner. 3. ..." Valamyre listed out the twelve major uses of dragon blood, with Zephyr listening attentively. When he was finally finished, Zephyr gave an approving nod.

"It seems that maybe you're not so incompetent after all," Zephyr said. "Well then, I've decided. I will question your abilities once a week, every Friday. I can make room in my schedule at precisely 5:15, in building 16, room 210. Don't be late. I have to leave now, I have an appointment with Professor Hoffman at 3:30. Goodbye."

Valamyre watched dumbfounded at Zephyr left, and then made up his mind that he would be there at 5:15. He didn't really care if Zephyr thought he cheated or not, but this was a chance to interact with him, and Valamyre realized that Zephyr was clearly important.

Valamyre had made a few friends at his short time at AMA, but no one too significant. He usually stuck with Anna, as they requested the same classes, and was able to bring her up to the level of most second years at AMA. He met once a week with Zephyr for the rest of the year, striking an unusual trust, and maybe even a friendship, with a strange boy. In turn, he learnt all about what work Zephyr was doing with the professors.

It seemed that Zephyr was involved with incredible ground-breaking research. A pure-blood wizard, Zephyr had little-to-no exposure to the Muggle world, and therefore knew nothing of Muggle math and science. But he managed to make a ward string without it, capable of identifying individual magical signatures, and allowing or denying access to facilities. It was sort of a magical ID tag. He was working with the senior Arithmancy professor, Professor Hoffman, and was seriously contributing as much as the grown professor. Zephyr was the smartest student of the school, which was why he had an audience with the headmistress once a week. He was given the position of student-faculty liason, which meant that he wasn't fully a student, and wasn't fully a faculty member. His role was to get his magical degree primarily, but also to help out with faculty research or grading. Valamyre introduced Zephyr to Anna, but the two hated each other completely. Zephyr found Anna tedious and annoying, while Anna found Zephyr rude.

Eventually, Zephyr became somewhat of a mentor to Valamyre, recognizing his talent and nurturing it. For all his faults, Zephyr wished to benefit the magical world, and after seeing that Valamyre was key to the future success of the wizarding world, he wished to take Valamyre under his wing.

The year ended quickly, with Valamyre scoring top of his class again. He learnt about Arithmancy and Spell Creation from Zephyr, which complemented his learning in other subjects. Anna finished third in the class, a pretty good accomplishment for her. The year passed without any major events from the outside world, and Valamyre was really fitting in to the magical environment of Australia. Life was good for a certain Valamyre (probably the only Valamyre); for the first time in his life, he was content.

**AN: I know, a shorter chapter. But I really wanted to get something out there, and I was really really busy. This was basically a set-up chapter, next chapter I'm probably going to go back to 2012, and in the following chapter, I'm probably going to go back to young Valamyre's second year, during the rise of Alexander.**

**Anyways, I'm interested in what you think, as always. However, in your review, I'd be very pleased if you could include a fic that you find interesting or that you like. Please recommend a fic with less than 1000 reviews, and tell me who the author is, and why you like it. I'll start.**

**Right now, I'm interested in "Misconceptions" by Dreams2Paper11. It has a really good start (it's a wrong-bwl story), and it's actually one of the best ones so far. It explains the neglect that Harry suffers from Lily and James, rather than assuming it, and it's really well written. **

**The link is ****s/8893620/1/ (with fanfiction in front of it.)**


	5. AN: Sorry

**AN: I'M SORRY**

**Yes, this is the dreaded Author's Note saying that the story will not be continued. I truly am sorry for not being able to continue The Return, but the truth is that I just don't want to. The quality of the story has been getting worse and worse, and this is directly due to me losing interest in the story. Instead of feeling excited about writing new chapters, I feel like it's a chore, you know. And since I'm not getting paid to do this, I really don't want to. So, in conclusion, my work on The Return has come to a close. I may return to the story in the future, but for now, I'm just not interested in the plot. If anyone else wants to use anything from the story, even the basic idea, feel free, and just PM me beforehand. Again, I'm really sorry.**

**Now I do have some good news, depending on your perspective. I have started a story that I believe that I will not lose interest in, called "A Genius's Paradise" (The first chapter is out right now). I think that part of the problem with The Return was that I didn't plan the story out; I just wrote. With this, I have a definite plan of what I'm going to write in every chapter. I know that many of you will lose faith in me as an author for giving up a story, and I'm honestly a little disappointed in myself too. But, The Return was my first try at writing, and it was in no means perfect, or even good. Hopefully, my second attempt will be much better.**

**Once again, if anyone wants to use anything from The Return, please PM me, and I'll be happy to let you.**

**Thank You**

**-TheRoneBone**


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